Antifascist Dad Podcast

I sit down with Brent Patterson, a veteran anti-militarism organizer whose four decades of work span prison abolition, Indigenous solidarity, and campaigns against state violence. We examine the Carney government's remilitarization agenda. It is not a response to genuine security threats, but as a coherent economic strategy dressed in the language of sovereignty and national pride.

We look at the math on the F-35 warplane purchase: what it actually costs, who controls it, and what that money could do instead. We talk about Arctic resource extraction and the military infrastructure being built to enable it, the integration of Canadian and US military supply chains, the No More Loopholes arms export bill, and the gap between Canada's international self-image and its actual record of 1,600 bombing missions over Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Serbia. We close with Brent's forty years of organizing experience — the losses, the marginal wins, and what sustains people in a long struggle.

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Brent Patterson is Executive Director of Peace Brigades International, and writes for Rabble.ca.

SOURCES 

NATO total military spending 2024: $1,506 billion — SIPRI Trends in World Military Expenditure, 2024

NATO 5% GDP target agreed at The Hague summit — Atlantic Council NATO Defence Spending Tracker

Canada's Department of National Defence spent $34.5 billion in FY2024 — Canadaspends

Carney commits Canada to $150 billion annually in defence by 2035 — Globe and Mail, June 2025

Carney's first budget: $81.8 billion in defence investment over five years — CBC News, November 2025

DND defence spending targets and NATO commitments — Canada.ca

Full 45-year F-35 life-cycle cost estimated at C$73.9 billion — Parliamentary Budget Office, November 2023

F-35 acquisition cost jumps 50% to C$27.7 billion — Skies Mag / Auditor General, June 2025

Full acquisition cost now C$33 billion including infrastructure and weapons — Flight Global, June 2025

Full history of Canada's F-35 procurement process — Wikipedia

Chapters

(00:03:23) - Canada's $35 billion F35 deal
(00:12:18) - What Does Militarization Tell Us About Global Capitalism?
(00:14:13) - Canada's Remilitarization Plans
(00:29:23) - Canadian Military Spending and National Sovereignty
(00:38:59) - Wins and Losses
(00:42:07) - What Would You Tell Young Activists in Their 20s?

I've wanted to understand the radical flank of Islam for a long time, and I feel a little ashamed it took me this long. In this episode I talk with Mona Haydar — rapper, poet, chaplain, and Muslim activist — about the theological architecture of Islamic mutual aid: zakat, the mandatory redistribution of wealth; sadaqa, voluntary charity rooted in truthfulness; and taqwa, the reverence and permeating consciousness that Ramadan is designed to build. Mona makes the case that if Muslims fully practiced these commandments, global poverty could be eliminated. We also get into 9/11's psychic reckoning for American Muslim communities, the good Muslim/bad Muslim trap that Mahmood Mamdani diagnosed, and why Islamophobic attacks — including right here in Toronto from my own city councillor — keep producing conversion waves rather than retreat. Part Two is on Patreon.

Mona Haydar

Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social

Instagram: @matthew_remski

YouTube: @antifascistdad

TikTok: [@antifascistdad]

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Chapters

(00:08:03) - Muslim greetings
(00:09:59) - Meaning of Ramadan
(00:18:27) - The Flattening of the Real
(00:36:49) - Islam and the Trump era
(00:48:24) - Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, Renewed Muslim

In Toronto, the morning after US strikes ignited oil depots across Tehran. I reach for Michael Parenti. His core insistence is that fascism is not madness or mob psychology but a calculated counter-revolution: deployed when socialist and labour movements threaten property relations, used to crush unions, criminalize minorities, and restore profitability through repression. It puts the irrational back into perspective.

Sources:

Michael Parenti, Black Shirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism (1997, City Lights Books) https://citylights.com/city-lights-published/blackshirts-reds-rational-fascism/

Michael Parenti, Waiting for Yesterday: Pages from a Street Kid's Life (2013, Bordighera Press) https://www.michael-parenti.org/book-waiting-for-yesterday

Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew (1945/1948 English translation, Schocken Books) https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/330311/anti-semite-and-jew-by-jean-paul-sartre/

Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social

Instagram: @matthew_remski

YouTube: antifascistdad

TikTok: @antifascistdad

Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast

Pre-order Antifascist Dad: Penguin Random House

Chapters

(00:00:00) - Antifascist Dad: Optimism of the Intellectual
(00:02:08) - Lessons of Michael Parenti
(00:14:19) - How to survive a fascist dystopia

Canada's proto-fascist scorecard is racking up big numbers. Jasmine Peardon — organizer, policy researcher, and New Democratic Party Socialist Caucus candidate for party president — joins me to discuss this critical turning point.

We look at Mark Carney's Davos speech as a case study in political dishonesty. We trace the NDP's founding compromise: born in 1961 as a merger with the anti-capitalist CCF, the party has always held its socialist roots at arms length. 

Jasmine's out to change that. We discuss the presidential vote structure that stacks the deck against grassroots candidates, the Yves Engler vetting scandal, and the concept of movement capture — how progressive energy gets absorbed and neutralized by parties that want your vote but not your values or full-time organizing.

Also: the solidarity economy's double-tax problem: ordinary people paying twice for dignity while their taxes continue to fund war. Part two is on Patreon now.

Sources:

New Democratic Party (NDP)

Once upon a Waffle

Canada's economy lost 84,000 jobs in February, unemployment rate ticked up to 6.7%

The Military Wins and Public Programs Lose in Carney's Budget

Canada releases Budget 2025: Canada Strong

Budget 2025: A "historic moment" for the arms industry

White nationalist fight clubs pose risk for 'extreme violence,' warns government report

'Active clubs' are all over Canada. What are they?

White Nationalism in Canada: Organized, Emboldened, and Growing

RCMP charges military members allegedly plotting to form militia and seize land

How a White Nationalist Club Thought It Found Safe Haven in a Montreal Gym

Bubble Pop with Rachel Gilmore

Here's one easy trick to combat foreign political interference in our media

Postmedia and the American Hedge Fund Takeover of Canada's Newspapers

For the sake of our democracy, American hedge funds should be banned from owning Canadian newspapers

B.C. premier says Alberta separatists seeking assistance from U.S. is 'treason'

Canadian separatists optimistic after meetings with Trump officials

Chapters

(00:02:01) - Jasmine Peardon's challenge to the NDP
(00:12:42) - Mark Carney's 'clear picture' of Canadian politics
(00:14:39) - Is the New Democratic Party a Social Democratic Party?
(00:24:38) - How the Old Guard Will Respond
(00:39:04) - Party Politics and the Solidarity Economy

In part two of my conversation with Jasmine Peardon, we trace her path from UBC to federal public policy to a master's at Concordia, and the radicalization that travel through the Global South and October 7 accelerated.

We share a moment of recognition about India: how white spiritual tourists and white activists alike can move through a country absorbing deference without understanding colonialism.

Jasmine identifies intergenerational socialist mentorship as her core source of resilience — the older comrades who remind her that none of this is new. We work through Kshama Sawant's lesson on concrete demands: "pull out of NATO" beats "anti-imperialist" every time, because it forces a defence. Jasmine also has some advice for 12-year-olds to read freely and build practical skills — let political consciousness develop without urgency.

In the coda I return to the Regina Manifesto of 1933 and the Lewis family dynasty to ask what threads of socialist history have survived to reach us now.

Sources:

The Great Depression in Canada

Great Depression — The Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan

The Arid Years — Legion Magazine

Unemployment During the Great Depression — The Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan

The Regina Manifesto at 90: lessons for the Canadian left

Thomas Clement "Tommy" Douglas (1904–1986)

Rise of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation

Regina Manifesto — The Canadian Encyclopedia

New Democratic Party (NDP)

Moishe Lewis — EBSCO Research Starters

David Lewis — The Canadian Encyclopedia

Lewis family (Canada) — The Canadian Encyclopedia

Avi Lewis for NDP Leader

The Regina Manifesto (1933) — Socialist History Project

Capitalism Can’t Be Fixed—Onward to a Socialist Future

All music by Kallie Marie.

Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social

Instagram: @matthew_remski

YouTube: @antifascistdad

TikTok: @antifascistdad

Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast

Pre-order Antifascist Dad

Chapters

(00:05:06) - How to get to where you are
(00:12:29) - GenZ obstacles to engagement
(00:26:17) - What Advice Would You Have For 12-Year-Old Self?
(00:30:20) - Cooperative Commonwealth Federation
(00:35:19) - Regina Manifesto, 1933